The David Pakman Show - 2/23/24: MTG must pay $100,000 mask fine, Trump quickly running out of money

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

-- On the Show: -- The Supreme Court rejects Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's appeal of her fines for not wearing masks on the House floor -- Failed former President Donald Trump is quickly running out of money as legal expenses mount, regularly spending more than his campaign takes in -- Caller makes the point that Trump added a lot to the deficit even before COVID -- Caller confronts David about circumcision and the draft in Ukraine -- Caller points out that the rigged election narrative may backfire on Trump and Republicans -- Caller explains what's really going on at the southern border -- Caller asks how Trump supporters will react if he loses again in 2024 -- Caller asks about the war in Gaza -- The Friday Feedback segment -- On the Bonus Show: Florida passes bill banning social media for kids under 16, Fox host blames Trump for border bill failure, Fox pundit says Trump sneakers will help him with black vote, and much more... 🧦 Strideline: Use code DAVID for 15% off at https://strideline.com 🧘 Attend the PHD Weight Loss workshop for FREE on Feb 29: https://davidpakman.com/phd 🖥️ UPLIFT Desk: Get 5% OFF with code PAKMAN5 at https://upliftdesk.com/pakman 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 10% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN 💻 Stay protected! Try our sponsor Aura FREE for 2 weeks at https://aura.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

Speaker 1 We appear to finally be getting to the end of the long sordid tale of Marjorie Taylor Greene, radical and repugnant reactionary Republican Congresswoman and the fines for violating the House of Representatives mask mandates during the COVID era. And I know many of you probably assumed this story was over. It is not over. But we are now at the stage, you know, when people say we're going to take this all the way to the Supreme Court and you laugh and you say, no, you're not. She attempted to take it all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court has rejected it. Here's the news. Mask mandates. Supreme Court rejects appeal from Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republican

lawmakers. And here is the story. Three Republicans who had their pay docked in 2021 for flouting a mask mandate. Remember, it's flouting, not flaunting. People think I make up that word, but it's a real word for flouting a mask mandate on the floor of the House of Representatives during the covid pandemic. Got no help from the Supreme Court Tuesday. The justices without comment declined an appeal from members of Congress, Tom Massey, Ralph Norman and Marjorie Taylor Greene in their lawsuit against former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Lower court said Pelosi could not be sued because courts don't have jurisdiction over Congress's internal rules. Lawyers for the current House Speaker, Maga Mike Johnson, agreed with the decision.

Despite House Republican leaders opposition to the mask rule, they told the Supreme Court this case is not about the wisdom of the rule or whether it is based on sound science. Remember that Marjorie Taylor Greene, I think it's up to about a hundred thousand dollars in fines at this point in time. And, uh, she is ultimately going to have to pay all of it. I believe it was already deducted from her pay in fact. So I don't know that this is truly the end. Maybe they can find some other grounds or whatever.

And of course, for me, as I think back to this, is it really about relitigating the effectiveness of a surgical versus an N95? Or is it about the fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene and a few other of these extremists went out of their way just to be contrarians for no real reason other than they wanted attention and they were upset about the realities of the situation at the time. And it's understandable to have been upset about what was going on, but to believe that you get some kind of special treatment and it's by the way, it's not very different than the members of Congress who go around the metal detectors. Remember, I think they've solved that issue. But at a certain point, there were questions as to whether Madison Cawthorn and maybe even Lauren Boebert were

going armed to the floor of the House of Representatives. And it was revealed that there was some way, I guess, to get around the metal detectors. It's all the same sort of stuff, which is, listen, if you want to participate here and you don't like the rules, you can participate in trying to change the rules. It's it's by definition a Democratic body where if you can convince enough people and you can get the votes to change the rule, you can get rid of the mask mandate or get rid of the metal detectors or do whatever it is you want to do. You don't unilaterally get to say, I don't like the rules, so I'm ignoring it. It depends on building consensus. And this is sort of the job of legislators. So it's a great thing that the

Supreme Court rejected this. It's not so good that we have so many egomaniacal narcissists in elected office that they think the rules don't apply to them. And this applies in so many different ways. This is the mayor who gets pulled over for speeding and says, do you know who I am? We've had a bunch of instances of that over recent years. It's the members of Congress who go around the metal detectors, the ones who take off their masks when masks are required. It's all of it. Participate in building consensus and changing the rules rather than just saying the rules don't apply to me. The money troubles for the failed former President Donald Trump are getting worse and worse and worse. The daily beast reports, Donald Trump's cash crunch just got much, much worse. This is a real issue and

it's not a theoretical issue. This is a practical issue. Uh, as Donald Trump's, the article reads as Donald Trump's legal troubles consume more and more of his time, they're also consuming more of his donors money. And there is a hole in the bucket. On Tuesday, Trump's Save America Leadership Pack reported raising only eight thousand five hundred dollars from donors in all of January. That's not a typo. While spending three point nine million. You know, Republicans love to talk about you've got to balance your household budget. You got to do it. When I look at eighty five hundred in three point three point nine million out, it sounds like a problem. Now, this is the critical line of the three point nine million.

Almost three million was for paying lawyers because of Trump's legal troubles. At the same time, the article continues. The Trump campaign itself reported a net loss of more than two point six million for January. Trump's campaign raised eight point eight million and spent eleven point five million. Filings reveal Trump is burning through donor funds as he struggles to feed two cash drains, astronomical legal bills and the cost of a national presidential campaign. Nikki Haley actually outraised Trump for this period. Now, I know that there is a general principle in American politics. If you raise more money, you usually win. I don't think it's going to

apply in this particular case to Nikki Haley, but Trump's legal troubles are a real issue. And the I still believe this will not interfere with him being the nominee. But the question is, how is this going to interfere with him defeating Joe Biden? Now, I know everybody has their area of focus. There are those who say presidents get reelected. So Joe Biden's fine. There are those who say Biden's approval is too low to get reelected. Well, but Trump's approval is also a disaster and tons of people hate Trump. There are those who focus on fundraising.

There's a there's all these different perspectives you can take. If we want to take a sort of systemic view of this, we have a I've said a lot of this before. We have a pretty good economy and that's good for the incumbent. We have a bunch of accomplishments by Joe Biden, and that's pretty good. A lot of people do think Joe Biden is too old to be president. So that goes against him. OK, we've got all that on the Trump side. We have he already lost in 2020. He now has 91 criminal charges against him in practical terms. Not only is he going to be really busy with these criminal trials, the first of which is starting in just weeks, weeks. He is also going to be spending a lot of money in that way. And he's going to continue diverting money that comes in from donors

to legal bills rather than to television ads or to whatever else might be more useful. So I think, you know, looking obviously, I'm voting for Biden over Trump if they are the nominees. So in that sense, I am biased. I have a horse in the race. I think Biden's been a pretty good president, certainly better than Trump. And I'd rather him have four more years than giving Trump four more years. But if I look at this in an objective way as possible, you can find arguments in favor of and against Biden's reelection. But the problems for Trump are building very, very quickly. And I know that there are those who are saying the solution here is for Nikki to get out. Nikki raised 11 million bucks in January. If she got out, even if only half of

that went to Trump or a third of that went to Trump, it fixes a bunch of that deficit that Trump is facing. The problem is there are major donors donating to Nikki Haley who have no interest in Trump whatsoever. And if she leaves, they're not donating to Trump. So Trump is going to have to find new donors or to squeeze the existing donors for more money, maybe becoming the official nominee or maybe Nikki Haley being mathematically eliminated is going to help him do that. But he's got a real problem. And by the way, honestly, that we talk about empathy and all this stuff.

Who the hell is donating money to Donald Trump at this point? Seriously, who is don't I saw that there were ten thousand dollar anonymous donations made to the GoFundMe to pay for Trump's civil fraud. Fine. I would love to meet the people donating to money, donating money to Trump at this point. Hey, we're taking calls later. We'll take calls next week. If you are a Trump donor, please get on my discord and call me because I want to talk to you. We have a tremendous program coming up for you today. Make sure you're subscribed to the YouTube channel now pushing towards two point five million subscribers. Can you believe these numbers? It's crazy. YouTube dot com slash the David Pakman show. Show will take a very quick break and the Friday

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some folks in the audience. We do the calls on the Friday show. You can find the David Pakman show discord at David Pakman dot com slash discord. And we'll start today with Alex in New York City. Alex in New York City. Welcome to the show. What's on your mind today? Hey, thanks so much for taking my call. First of all, belated happy birthday to you. Thank you. And so I had mostly kudos for you and also sort of a constructive suggestion. I wouldn't really call it a critique. But I think one thing I'm really happy that you cover a lot of and you talk about a lot, pretty much more than anybody that I've seen in the media, is media literacy itself. I think it's probably the biggest and most important issue that's not really talked about much of our generations, and one that's

very deeply rooted in the divisions within our country. Agreed. Thank you. And so, you know, I guess my sort of constructive suggestion for you, along those lines, you know, I think, you know, you're in sort of an interesting place in terms of opportunities for presenting media literacy because you do so many calls to people on air. And, you know, I'm just thinking it'd be really interesting to just even ask people on a regular basis, you know, where they're getting their news from as you're speaking to them on the air. I think that just could just be something to think about, give it some thought. I think it could like really breathe a lot of life and information into that also important topic.

That's an interesting idea. I will make it a point to do that when I think it important topic. That's an interesting idea. I will make it a point to do that when I think it's relevant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that was really all I was calling about. But, you know, again, I think you're doing a great job of that. And also just I'll mention, you know, I know you've been querying the audience about, you know, how far to the left people are. I mean, I consider myself pretty far to the left and I'm really pretty much right on board with you on almost all of these issues pertaining to, you know, not not not going overboard. So I I hear you.

All right. Alex from New York City. Thank you so much for the call. I appreciate it. Let's go next to Elris from Zurich, Switzerland, one of my favorite cities in the world, Zurich, Switzerland. Welcome, Elris, to the program. Let me know what's on your mind today. Elris from Zurich, please accept my invitation to join the show. Speaker 5 Hello. Hello.

Speaker 1 You're on the air. Speaker 5 Yes. Good evening. First of all, I hope you have a good morning on your side on the earth because of the time difference. Speaker 1 Thank you. What's on your mind today? Speaker 5 Well, I just have a small question

regarding the Kosovo conflicts, regarding Kosovo and Serbia and the role America plays in it. I just wanted to ask if it's any, is it on the radar regarding the American public, what's going on here, or is it really that uninteresting? Because Biden's son, Beau, was heavily involved in Kosovo. And yeah, if you have any knowledge, you can share in this regard.

No, you know, I don't think it's really very much on the minds of most Americans. I have a passing understanding that there is an escalation of tensions between Serbia and Kosovo. And there are fears about things going back to the way they were in the late 90s. But I if I'm totally honest, it's been outside of my circle of what I've been able to follow with everything else that's going on. And I don't, I don't think it's on the minds of most Americans, if I'm honest, Elrish, maybe it should be. Yeah, well, well, it's my wishful thinking. It should be, but I understand because America has other things to think about regarding Israel and Russia and so on but it's just really interesting how America is tolerating Serbia's position like

the small incursion it had in September last year with 20 more than 20 armed people which killed one policeman but still is heavily criticizing the democratic nation of Kosovo. So it's this two-faced position which I feel really clueless about America. I don't know. If you have some opinions about those. Speaker 1 Elrish, very well said. We will continue to investigate and our connection is not so good. It sounds like there's a lot going on there. So I'm going to go ahead and let you go. But it is difficult to stay informed with everything that I can tell you for sure. Let's go next to Burt in New Jersey. Burt in New Jersey. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today?

Hey, David, thanks for calling me. Good to talk to you again. Likewise. No, you probably listen to the destiny and Ben Shapiro debate, I assume, right? I mean, I don't remember how long it was, if it was like a couple hours. I probably saw 10 to 15 minutes of it overall. One of the things they get into is a kind of comparison of Trump versus Biden on the economy, on like the fiscal condition of the country as a whole. Right. And it turns into this deficit spending comparison, very common conversation. I see happening with all my friends, people like

I speak to colleagues. Right. And,, right? And when it comes to Trump, you get the typical response on the right, which is, oh, you can't count 2020. That was COVID. Don't count the $3 trillion of deficit spend, right? And we can double click on that. We can talk about PPP and all the things that were terrible, but just give them that benefit of the doubt. If you look at the deficits under trump right um starting in last year the obama years right obama had brought the deficits down trump reversed that course right so excluding 2020 if you look at his first three years 2016 2017 2018 yeah it's it's all increasing right so the question i never hear asked to someone on the right, if Trump is

like the financial guru, the savior, why did deficits go up during those years? What happened? I don't know what they would say, but you're absolutely correct. Covid hit in 2020. But in Trump was elected in 2016, took office in January of 2017. Deficits went up. Remember, and just as a reminder to the audience, debt and deficit are two different things. The deficit went up in 2017. It went up in 2018. It went up in 2019. And I believe that Trump oversaw some of the largest deficit increases since George W. Bush, who previously had some of the largest.

So I don't know what they would say, Bert, but you're absolutely correct that Republicans only want to talk about the deficit after the pandemic. But of course, most of Trump's presidency was was before the pandemic. They hide behind that 2020 year. And I think we need to do a better job of highlighting the pre years of that where there was no covid. And just, you know, with things being normal in this supposed increase in all this prosperity we're seeing, it's actually the opposite on paper. I agree. It should be pointed out.

And I appreciate you doing so. Thank you, David. All right. Bert from New Jersey. Great to hear from you. Why don't we go next to Yash from Sri Lanka? Yash from Sri Lanka. Welcome to the program.

What's on your mind today? I'm curious. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Yes, it's nice to speak with you again. So I had two things to talk about. One was about Ukraine and the other is about a reoccurring topic that's getting a lot of traction in your discord that is about circumcision. I suppose you think it's a bad thing, right? I suppose what is bad? Circumcision. I am not a doctor. I do not get involved in the circumcision debate. Every time I do, people say anti-Semitic things that clearly because I'm Jewish, I can't be honest about it or whatever. So I don't even delve into that. I basically say I follow what doctors say. And the last I saw, the American Pediatric Association

said benefits generally outweigh risks. I'm not married to this idea. I don't tell anybody else what to do with their kids. And it's just not a debate that's interesting to me. I'm sure you have your opinions about abortion, right? Despite not being a doctor. Abortion is a political issue primarily in the United States. The medical part of it is actually irrelevant to most people. And in fact, if you present medical information to right wingers, they don't care, essentially. So I think that abortion is a is a completely different thing in that it has been at the

forefront of the political and legal world dating back to 1973 and really before that circumcision doesn't have that same status. And so I see it completely differently. I think they're both medical issues and we can you do care about medical issues. You care about abortion. So I don't think like I said, I care about abortion and that's like, for example, you could say, well, the overuse of antibiotics is also a medical issue. And I would agree with you, but it has not taken on any kind of this is a political show. It's not taken on any kind of political angle. So like, I don't take

a position about the overuse of antibiotics and similar as an average person. We have sufficient knowledge to care about, to have our opinion about circumcision. I think as an average person. Yeah, I guess. Okay, so my second thing that I wanted to talk about was about Ukraine. Are you aware that they have a draft? And this is I'm I'm speaking with you on this because leftists are big on talking about sexism. And Ukraine right now is having a draft that is very sexist and progressive. That's silent on this. What do you think about that? I don't know anything about the Ukrainian draft.

Tell me about it. Well, they have a draft and they're not allowing the men to leave the country. They haven't been allowed to leave the country for two years. Only men are being drafted. Women are not. And they have a draft. They're forcing men into the military. And that is a very sexist thing.

You are a political streamer. It's I don't know how you don't know about this. That's a bit incompetent on your part, I guess. I mostly do American politics, so I'm not familiar with the details of the Ukrainian military system. I'm glad to research it. Is there a specific so let's let's imagine that I familiarize myself with the specifics of the Ukrainian military. What was

your question then be to me if I was prepared to answer it? I mean, I don't get what you just said, Americans. You're an American political commenter. Of course, you have to care about America supporting Ukraine. You're giving it to Ukraine. Of course, it's an issue that's concerning you. I have no. Hold on a second. Yeah, yeah. Hold on a second.

I pay my taxes in the United States. I have no influence whatsoever more than anybody else in whether we are providing Ukraine with equipment which is purchased from American companies. Why does that mean? I have to know the details of how Ukraine builds its military and its draft. I mean, what I'm asking you is tell me what they're doing and ask me the question you want me to weigh in on. Speaker 4 because. America is giving aid to Ukraine and, you know, if Ukraine is not, if the country you're giving aid to is not a moral country, then that's an issue that you should concern yourself

as a part of the U.S. gives aid. Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Yes. The U.S. gives aid to tons of countries that are not considered modern by our standards. In fact, sometimes that's why we're giving the aid. That seems like a strange litmus test. And you also earlier said that it's an other it's another country and you don't care about

it. You talk about other countries. It's not that I don't care. Yes. What I'm asking you is what is the question you have for me on the basis of Ukraine's military draft? Like what I'm saying to you is you've raised the issue. My question is, hold on a second. Don't interrupt me, please. Let me ask my question, OK? OK. You've raised the issue of Ukraine's military draft. I've told you I'm not familiar with the particular details of Ukraine's draft. But what I want to

know from you is, let's imagine I were. What do you want me to weigh in on in relation to their draft? Speaker 4 I want you I want you to give your opinion about their sexism in their draft as you are a progressive who and progressives are big on talking about sexism. They have a sexist draft. You have something to talk about. It's obvious. Okay. Well, let me inform myself and then I will talk about their sexist draft. I mean, in general, my view on military police, firefighters, et cetera, is that it should be based on ability. So for example, when it comes to firefighting, if what you need to be able to do

is drag one hundred and fifty pound body, two hundred feet in 30 seconds, and you need to be able to carry fifty two pounds of equipment or whatever, if you're able to do that, then you should qualify. And my views for the military in general are the same. So that's my overarching perspective. Yash, I'll have to further inform myself about Ukraine specifically. I don't think mail only drafts are specific to Ukraine. I think there's probably 20 countries that do that. And so this, I think, is a broader question, not just about Ukraine. Yeah, including America. You have a sexist draft as well. The U.S. doesn't have a sexist draft as well.

The US doesn't have a draft. And you called about this last time. And I'm curious, since we last spoke, have you been thinking about the draft in the US the whole time? No, I've been thinking about a lot of different things. Fair. I think that that's healthy. Yes, I really appreciate the call. Appreciate talking to you. All right. There goes Yash. Let's speak. Jesus. Let's speak next

to how about Andrew from Arizona? Andrew from Arizona. Welcome to the program. What's on your mind today? Andrew from Arizona, you have self muted. Please unmute yourself and then I'll be able to hear you. Hey, David, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Hey, thanks for calling on me today. I actually have a pretty relevant question regarding a video that you made a few days ago.

You mentioned that you don't believe in playing tricks to reduce Republican turnout in the election, like telling them that the election will be on a different day. Yeah. And to be clear, Andrew, it's it's just like a moral ethical thing. I I believe the way to win elections is with full participation, winning the hearts and minds of voters and getting more votes. And so as a as a tactic, I would feel guilty running campaigns based on confusing the other side about when the Election Day is. That's what I meant, just to be clear.

Right. And I agree with that. But my question was, what impact do you think that the Republican narrative on the election being stolen will actually have on Republican voter turnout? Because I can see an argument the other way that convincing them that the Democrats are cheating could actually increase turnout if they believe that they need to have more turnout in order to overcome the Democrats, even though they believe they're cheating. Yeah, we've discussed this.

You could really interpret this two ways. On the one hand, Republican candidates telling Republican voters it's rigged and Democrats have a plan to steal it. It might get them to say, wow, we've really got to turn out in large numbers in order to cancel out all the cheating Democrats are going to do. That's one outcome. The risk for Republicans in doing that is they might end up getting voters to think, hey, you know what, if they're going to just hack in and delete my vote, I'm not even going to bother. And when Trump says mail in voting is fraud, which of course it isn't, it might get voters who can't get to the polls either because of their work schedule or because

of a physical limitation. It might get those voters to say, oh, if Trump says mailing in votes is fraud, I'm not even going to do that. So it's there's an open question as to whether repeating that is going to help turn out for them or it's going to hurt turnout for them. I think it risks hurting turnout. Right. Yeah, I agree with you generally, but I just wanted to bring up the other side as well to you.

You thought about it. Yeah, I think you can make arguments on both sides, really. OK, well, thanks, David. Really appreciate you taking my call. All right. Andrew from Arizona. Thank you. my call today. All right. Andrew from Arizona. Thank you.

Let's take a quick break. If you're holding on to talk to me, just hold on a couple more minutes because we'll go right back to discord in a moment. Did you know that even if you exercise once a day and then basically sit the rest of the day, you can still suffer the consequences of a sedentary lifestyle because physical inactivity throughout the workday can cause a whole host of different health issues. And that's one of the many reasons I use a standing desk at desk that can go up or down. It gets my creative energy flowing.

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The info is in the podcast notes. Let's go back and talk to a few more people on our discord. Our discord is at David Pacman dot com slash discord. Let's go to I. I never remember how to pronounce this. Is it Emmer from Jordan? It's just a M.R. Amir. What was the right pronunciation? It's Amish. I'm sorry, I can barely hear you. It's almost. What what's the name of the.

It's a letter that doesn't exist in English. So I'm having such a hard time hearing you. OK, go ahead. What's on your mind today? Hello. You're on the air. I don't know if you had a question today. Speaker 4 And you heard me now. Speaker 1 I can hear you. All right. Unfortunately, we're going to have to move on. That was a failed attempt at a phone call.

Let's go next to Ivan from Eagle Pass. Ivan from Eagle Pass. I'm so curious. Where is Eagle Pass? It's not a place I've heard of before. Ivan from Eagle Pass. Please accept my invitation to join the show. Got it. Hey, how's it going?

I called last night from from Germany asking about my brother is in the military. I don't know. You remember? I do remember right now. I'm in Eagle Pass, Texas. Actually, you talked about the the city not too long ago. Completely. It's somehow been blanked from my mind. What did I say about Eagle Pass? It was about the the razor wire floating in. Oh, OK. Yeah. The specific town is so secondary to

that story that I didn't realize. Yes, I know. But it was weird for me to hear my hometown. Fair enough. Fair enough. It had been mentioned. So, yes, being here with all the immigrants trying to cross the border, I don't know, it's weird to hear people, Republicans saying like, hey, the border is wide open. Well, I have friends and family that either work in one side of the border and live in the other side and they just cross all the time but they still have to you know make the line and check their passports and do all that stuff and so it's weird how people here still believe some of the other uh lies

that they're being spewing so uh yeah i just wanted to let you know about how it feels to be back home here after a while. And I thought that the people would be more aware of the political discourse right now. But actually, it's just it's weird to me how oblivious they are to some of the discussions and they just take it for granted, whatever they hear. For example, one of my friends or family members from relatives from Mexico just mentioned to me like, oh, yeah, I know that how immigrants are just coming through and they're going to vote for Biden. I'm like, oh, hold on. That's not how it works. Right. I mean, it's like they can't they can't even register to vote. How are they going to vote for Biden? Exactly. Yeah. I told him my wife has been a resident for 10 years and until she becomes a citizen then she's going to be able to to vote uh but yeah that's not how it is like oh okay and i

thought it was weird i don't i don't really think that they understood or believe what i said right which uh yeah it's it's really uh disappointing to to hear uh my my mom has a friend that she's very active in the for example, when there were all that stuff about razor wire in the river was out. My mom said that her friend went out there to make some noise about it and complain

again. So I'm looking forward to have a conversation with her and see if she's more aware of what's going on around here. And I'll probably just call you back and tell you how he feels. I've only been back for a week, so I haven't been able to see the full scope of the sentiment around the area. But so far, it's been very disappointing how people is just not aware of what's going on. And they just believe. So your message is the border is not open is the message. Exactly. Yes. It's not open right now. I'm actually in the Mexican side here in the town called Piedras Negras. And yeah, I mean, I had to make a line. I had to pay the toll.

It's not open. I see a lot of soldiers actually by the border. do have a higher or better um you know they put up some more walls uh around it it looks flashy in the news but it actually seems pretty flimsy once you're up against it and what do you um what do you do in that town when you go over there to mexico what do you do i just visit visit family. I just, you know, eat with my friends. They're just going to, to see the family. I haven't seen in a while and try to be here as much as possible with them and, you know, go out and eat tacos and all the good stuff. And when you come back to the US, is there a very long line? Speaker 5 Yes, especially on the weekends. You can wait two hours just to to get seen by the the agent there to check your passport. They ask you or you bring it from from Mexico, just like you do when you come from from, you know, on an international flight. Yeah. Same

thing. Yeah. Is this. Speaker 1 All right, Ivan. Well, thank you. on an international flight. Yeah. Same thing. Yeah. Is this. All right, Ivan. Well, thank you. I appreciate the update. Don't worry. I'll see you later. All right. There it goes. Ivan on the U S Mexico border today. Very, very close there. Why don't we go to Gerald from Miami next? Gerald from Miami. What's on your mind today? Hello, can you hear me, David? Yeah, you're on the air. OK. Hi, David. So I was just curious. I wanted to I remember hearing your comments recently in regards to Nikki Haley saying that she would pardon Trump. And, you know, from what I remember, you said that, you know, that's essentially just not a good idea. It wouldn't be fair. But well, so two different things, Gerald, let me clarify

just real quick. First of all, saying in advance that she would pardon him without yet having the case adjudicated and knowing was there. How do you know if there was a miscarriage of justice, if the case hasn't even been adjudicated yet that I'm against. And in general, the idea of just pardoning former presidents because of who they are sends the wrong message. It destroys trust in the rule of law. And I'm against it for a lot of different reasons. OK.

OK. Well, thank you for thank you for clarifying. I apologize if I misrepresented your statement. No, not at all. So it's in my in my opinion, it feels like it's kind of like a double edged sword. And the reason why I say that is because I think back, given given how polarizing of a figure Donald Trump is and seeing as how, you know, the events of January 6, and that was just caused by, you know, him just telling lies and stuff like that about the election. But I can only imagine what would happen

if he were to be put in jail. The public response to that. No, but Gerald, I know where you're going with this. That is a very I think that that it is extremely dangerous precedent to say, yes, we need to pardon Trump to prevent his supporters from becoming violent over him being in prison. If the support if he should be in prison, then he should be in prison. And if the supporters are going to become violent, they should get arrested and charged. That's how we deal with things when we have the rule of law. I agree.

I do. I do agree. And like I said, that's why I feel like it's almost like a double edged sword because, you know, I'm afraid, you know, especially even just just the talks of of Donald Trump, like right now and what he would do when he gets back in office. I'm really afraid that, you know, that democracy could literally just fall apart into and because of of his statements his actions etc so it's like i i i hear that point and i completely agree with you i'm not i'm not you know disagreeing you know i i believe in you know rule of law you break the law you should you know serve whatever time that

be but it's just i just also see that other side brings you know, it's kind of like scary to a certain extent. So I was just, you know, want to. Present that sort of like view, and I just want to get your opinion on it and sort of have that discussion, that's all. Yeah, no, I understand the point. And I think that we we don't we don't let people have no consequences because we're afraid their followers will become violent. We deal with the followers, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Very true. Very true. But that's all I have for you. All right. Gerald from Miami, thank you so much for the call. Very much appreciate it. Why don't we go next to I believe it's Bara from Indiana.

Am I pronouncing that correctly? Bara from Indiana. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Oh, okay. So I wanted to ask you, first of all, I love your show very much. And I wanted to ask you about the war in Gaza. So you, you were asked about this before and you and you said something like you were like pretty vague about it. I feel like whenever you talk about foreign policy, you're always like really coy about it, you know, because all you said was like something like, oh, I'm not in favor of bombings. Oh, I've said way more than that. I mean, I've done, you know, probably eight or 10 segments since October 7th about it.

It's not the main gist of this show, but to say that that's the one thing I said, I think you should probably just go back and watch all the clips if you want to know what I've said, because I've said I've said way more than I could possibly cram into this phone call. Let's put it that way. OK. I mean, so, OK, let me clarify then. Are you in favor of continuing to send Israel aid as they're continuing the war?

Or do you think we should call for a ceasefire right now or what? That's so that there's no way to answer. That's all different things. So first of all, I want an immediate end to hostilities and the hostages all to be released. I struggle to understand how you do that when Hamas has said they're not going to stop and continue trying to do October 7th over and over and over again. So when it comes to a ceasefire, I'm kind of with Bernie Sanders on this. I want hostilities to end. I want the bombing to stop.

I want the hostages to get out in practice. I don't know how you do a ceasefire with Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel and leaders have said we're not going to stop. I mean, it sounds like you don't even know. You don't even know you like you don't have like a strong position because you on the one hand, you don't want you or you don't want to continue the war, but also you don't know how you would end the conflict. No.

So so it's not that I don't even know. Are you saying how I would end the overall Israeli Palestinian conflict or how I would end this immediate flare up that we're dealing with right now? Well, I guess both like just what what you would do at this point, like, OK, what you would push for, I think at this point. So first of all, on ending the broader conflict, I've put out my 10 to 12 point plan. I've seen it dozens of times. So so I hope I don't need to restate that. But in terms of my bigger picture on the conflict, I've put that out right now.

I don't know what I would do in the sense that obviously Israel is not going to do nothing to try to get the hostages out. They're going to try to get the hostages out. So certainly my preference would be given that they're going to try to get the hostages out. They're going to try to get the hostages out. So certainly my preference would be given that they're going to try to get the hostages out. What is the way to do it with the least civilian collateral damage possible? It's probably special forces type operations. The the the problem with this is a lot of people say Israel shouldn't do any bombing. It should be all special forces operations.

And then we saw an example of that being done. Video was actually released from that being done. And some of the very same people said, no, that was also that was also wrong to do because they didn't. They're there illegally at that hospital, etc.. So I don't know that it'll satisfy everybody, Laura, but I would love to see some way of getting the hostages out, mostly through special forces type operations that minimize any civilian casualties as much as possible.

That would be my preference. And this is again, if you go to Israel and you go, listen, the hostages are gone. Stop trying to get them out. Obviously, no sane country is going to go with that. So I'm trying to kind of operate in reality to some degree. I mean, I think I think Hamas would release the hostages if if if Israel agreed to a ceasefire. I might be wrong on that. I don't know what they've said exactly.

But yeah, I mean, the I doubt it. You know, I think maybe they would say we will stop hostilities very briefly if you give us, you know, a 10 to 1 ratio in exchange for the hostages and then they would start right back up. That's my instinct. And again, I'm I'm kind of like in the Bernie line with this. So my view on this is very similar to Bernie Sanders. But obviously the broader conflict, I think we're nowhere near to even being in a position to productively have a shot at solving right now. OK. OK. I also wanted to quickly clarify your position on the border.

So I know what you're like long term, you know, you've talked about what you wanted, you wanted to do a long term about the southern border. So do you think in the short term, your solution would be that you that we should secure the border and like something like the bill that was that was in Congress. We need something like that to secure the border in the short term or what? Listen, this entire concept of securing the border often assumes that the border is open. Now people get through illegally in more than just the United States. And it happens in the United States under under every president. So the first question that when people want to talk about this is what is the standard? Are you trying to get to the point where not a single person gets through illegally? Because I don't know how you do that. I mean, just just quite literally, if you look at all

the ways in which people come over smuggled and then through areas where there is a where it's a water border versus there's no wall versus you can scale a wall that you build. And if the goal is zero, it's sort of like covid zero was and it was an impossible goal. Zero undocumented immigration seems effectively impossible. So then it just becomes what's the lowest hanging fruit? Well, the lowest hanging fruit certainly would be better and faster adjudication of asylum claims. So people aren't incentivized to try to skip that step. Looking at visa overstays, going after the companies that are hiring undocumented immigrants, which is supposedly against the law, but they almost never actually are

prosecuted for it. You've got to start with the lowest hanging fruit, dealing with the reasons people are trying to come over in the first place. I don't think it's wrong for any country to have a physical border, to enforce immigration law, to deport people who are here illegally. If they came here as adults of their of their own volition, all of those things are fine, right? Like, that's all legal. It's all the law. It's just we're not we're not substantively dealing with the problem unless we do the bigger picture things I'm talking about. OK, that makes sense. So it's

sort of like with the wall, it's totally legal to build a wall. I think it's kind of a waste of money given what it will cost and its effectiveness. But if you're putting up a wall in addition to doing the things that really make a difference, it's like, you know, build the wall. The problem with Trump was he was promising something that was never going to happen, which is Mexico will pay for it and it'll be done in four years. Just impossible, impossible. And he was pretending like that would solve the entire problem, which it wouldn't. That was my problem with what he was saying. OK, I mean, I mean, securing the border is not all about a wall, right?

No, very much. But for some people, it seems to be effectively be that. Yeah. Well, I agree with you. OK, well, thank you very much for taking my call. All right. Bara from Indiana. Great to hear from you. Let's go to a break. We'll get to more calls next week and I'll try to do better. I'll try to get to more people next week. You may remember a few years ago, the show got hacked and several thousand dollars were stolen. We never got it back. But now I have a lot more peace of mind because we use aura. Our sponsor aura is the all in one tool to protect your online and financial accounts. Aura alerts you anytime your personal info is found on the dark web or in data breaches could be social security number logins, financial accounts.

You will get very fast alerts. If a criminal does something like try to open up a bank account in your name, take out credit in your name, aura will also monitor your bank accounts, your home and auto titles, which can help to guard against fraud. And aura even protects your phone by letting you block and screen spam calls and texts. Aura has parental controls for your kids devices to and That's a u r a.com slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. Let's get into Friday feedback today. We start with a beautiful, positive email, well-written, substantive, coherent, and then we'll go to something that's very much the opposite. And then we'll get into some other things.

Remember that the email address for all feedback, all feedback should go to info at David Pakman dot com. We also will sometimes select tick tock messages or YouTube comments or X excretions or who knows what. All right. We start today with Dylan with a beautiful message about last Monday's show says, hi, David, just writing to say you were on fire today. The post Super Bowl analysis, Tucker Putin, Trump's horrific NATO take. You really analyzed it all with a laser incisiveness and wit that I've certainly seen from you before. But this one really stood out to me.

I am definitely sharing this one with friends and family. Big kudos. And thanks for being such a continued voice of sanity and nuance in these bizarre times with tears in my eyes. Dylan, a beautiful message. And then also via email from Kathleen, the exact opposite coming in. Kathleen writing in about my eyes and says, I'm not the only one saying this. You looked like a serious drug addict today. It's been bad for too long. You need to address this on YouTube. If it wasn't so obvious, it might slide under the radar

or people won't be asking what's David talking about today. They'll be viral posting what happened to David Pakman. You know, this is really interesting. Every couple years, once a year, someone will take time out of their day not to just leave it in a drive by YouTube comment. It's easy to do that. But about once a year, someone will take time to email in and it'll be some version of you're either on drugs or you're on alcohol on the show. About a year and a half ago, someone wrote me this whole email saying, David, listen, I've been in recovery long enough to know that you're drinking and you're drinking a lot before doing the show. And I know the struggle and I think it's probably becoming a problem. It's affecting blah, blah, blah. And it's like, I really don't drink, especially since my daughter was born.

I maybe have a drink every a single drink every 10 days or 14 days. I went to a vineyard over the weekend and had a glass of wine. And I think that's the first drink I had had since I think that the Aruba trip weeks ago. In any case, I'd be curious what which drugs Kathleen thinks I'm on. Of course, I'm not on any drugs. But to the extent that this is born out of genuine concern for me, I appreciate it. I'll put it that way. Dennis Wilder says Republicans got embarrassed. Have you not seen the Biden speeches when you have government officials voting just for the party and not the policies? This is what we get. And yes, if someone isn't there to vote and that vote counts, then yes, it's still a strong argument. This is somehow related to the failed impeachment of Mayorkas, the initial failed impeachment of Mayorkas.

I don't even know what that is is talking about. I don't know if he's saying that Al Green's vote or someone coming in at the last. I have no clue what Dennis is talking about, but I guess his point is Republicans failing on their own votes in the House isn't as embarrassing as when Joe Biden speaks. I think that's the point Dennis is trying to make. Benjamin wrote in about Trump's glitches and says, David, Trump's glitch on Orban wasn't the glitch. He's just plain stupid.

You know, I struggle to believe that what Benjamin is referring to is that many times Trump will refer to Victor Orban, who's, of course, the authoritarian leader of Hungary as the leader of Turkey. It's Erdogan in Turkey or bond in Hungary. There's some linguistic similarity between the two. So I don't know that it's Trump being stupid. I think it's more Trump struggling with the words in some way. Is it a cognitive glitch? Is it stupidity? I don't know for sure. But to me, it seems more like it's a

glitch. Let's see on Swifties versus Maggots. Thomas wrote in and said, David, I was thinking about this. Idolatry for Taylor Swift is bad. Idolatry for Donald Trump is good. I didn't know celebrities weren't allowed to support a candidate unless it's for a Republican. Who knew? Keep up the good work. It is interesting. So first of all,

absolute double standard when it is a right wing athlete, when it's some Trump supporting MMA guy, they will not silence him. He gets to speak to when it's, you know, Ted Nugent or Kid Rocks or these sorts of folks saying we love Trump. It's fine when it's Taylor Swift saying, I think Biden's better, but I'm mostly just doing music. All of a sudden she's evil. So that double standard is abundant. There's this other issue, though, which is people like Charlie Kirk and others have been attacking those who who like Taylor Swift saying they're idolizing her. It's idolatry. It's it's not good, but they seem to ignore or actually participate in themselves. The idolatry of Donald Trump. It's just double standards. It's double standards all the way down. Fishbone commented on YouTube and says Biden was not my first pick in 2020, but he's done a really great job.

Biden has competent people in his cabinet. I will enthusiastically vote Joe 2024. Yeah, I've said before all of this stuff about David. No one's excited about Joe Biden. The language of excitement is relevant to those who want their elected officials to be rock stars and to be cult leaders and to be holding massive rallies where they do outlandish and titillating things. I don't need any of that. I just want to go about my life. I want people in Washington to go about their lives, pass bills that materially improve

the lives of Americans. And then that's it. I don't need to be raw, raw, excited and thinking Joe Biden is just electric. It's unbelievable what he's able to do. I feel a tingle down my leg and this whole I just don't need that. It's I look at the people around him. I look at the accomplishments. Trump's a disaster. I am enthusiastic about making sure that it's four more years of Biden rather than another four years of Trump. That's really the bottom line. And Fishbone is encapsulating that. Mac Bell said, I will support the guy with 81 years behind him over the guy with 91 criminal charges ahead of him. I don't know if Mac came up with this on his

own, but I like it. And I agree. You know, we said it's 81 for Biden, 81 minus three and a half for Trump raised to the 91st power, which is the number of felony counts against him. Another opportunity for one of these spam PSAs, Breen got in touch on TikToks and says, hey, David, is someone spoofing you on a similar account? I was friended by David Pakman show 112 a few days ago, and it seems very unlikely you would do that. Yeah, it's all spam. OK, we are dealing with an insane situation on Tik TOK. We are unable to get our, our real account verified despite the fact that there are dozens, if not hundreds of other accounts impersonating us reposting my content and also reaching out to some of our followers

and trying to trick them into sending money or buying them Bitcoin or whoever knows what it is. We have one account on Tik TOK. It's David Pakman show. That's it. No one here is reaching out to you on any other accounts. And then lastly, a user who goes by the name The Meme Peruna wrote to us on TikTok and said, holy S word, you're stupid, wrong. You're guys calling other people stupid while saying you're stupid with the wrong. You're you're stupid. Do you actually like Joe Biden? Again, I'm not in a cult like dislike. I've never met the guy. Maybe Joe Biden's a prick behind the scenes. Maybe he's a nice guy from everything I read. He seems like a nice guy.

What I care about is what is he proposing to do and what has he done versus what is Trump proposing to do and what did Trump do while he was president? It's very obvious who is the better choice for the United States of America. That's who I will be voting for. My personal like or dislike of Biden is pretty damn irrelevant. All right. Meme Peruna, also known as Korku Tikkanen. OK, info at David Pakman dot com. If you have something you would like to communicate to me, I will remind you the party doesn't

have to end right now. It can continue on the bonus show. Thank you so much for joining us. If you'd like a discount, it's not means tested. It's just available. If you want a discount off of a membership, it's available. The coupon code is save democracy 24. I'll see everybody on the bonus show or back here on Monday.